Migrating Data to D: and then cloning OS from C: to new SSD

[mackado]

Guys, Good News!

All the time and effort invested in prepping up my aging Seagate HDD for cloning finally paid off last night..

After trying the SSD included 'Samsung Migration' software one last time last night without success, I then decided to leave 'AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard' running over night, and this morning to my surprise it cloned everything from my drive C:\ [OS] without any errors what so ever, swapped out the old Seagate HDD and installed the SSD on the same SATA Port and everything works without any issues, all Libraries are located on drive D:\ as before and the boot-up takes about 30 seconds now, one a good day it took this PC at least 5 minutes to boot before; This PC only supports SATA 2, I wonder how much faster this SSD would be running on a a SATA 3 port.

All I need to do now is clean-up all the testing log files left behind from the old HDD recovery, etc, and look into upgrading the memory on this PC, after that this PC should be good to go until Windows 10 comes around...

I want to thank you all for the help and input, especially Gregrocker for pointing me to the Seagate's 'Seatools for DOS' tool, I think that scan is what saved the day for me, I'll also keep the Win7 reinstall tutorial link handy in a bookmark just in case..LOL. and thanks to VerKy for turning me on to that AOMEI Cloning software that was able to read the repaired HDD.

 

[gregrocker]

I'd expect ten second startup with an SSD.

Check alignment and confirm no startup programs except lightweight AV and any sync. Then disable those to compare.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html

 

[mackado]

Thanks, I'll look into that, I read a 2012 tutorial for alignment but skipped it thinking the article only applied to first Generations SSDs...

 

[whs]

30 sec boot is a bit long but 10 sec is ambitious. On my 7 systems that all have SSDs, the boot times vary between 15 sec and 25 sec. And over time it degrades a bit. Like on this system boot time is up to 20 sec from 3 years ago when it was 18 seconds. But that is an older Crucial M4.

 

[mackado]

This is what I get ..remember my PC is only able to do 3 Gb/s (SATA 2)plus it was just a calculation..never tried to exactly measure the boot time..

 

[whs]

That alignment is OK.

 

[gregrocker]

30 sec boot is a bit long but 10 sec is ambitious. On my 7 systems that all have SSDs, the boot times vary between 15 sec and 25 sec. And over time it degrades a bit. Like on this system boot time is up to 20 sec from 3 years ago when it was 18 seconds. But that is an older Crucial M4.

My laptop is 5-10 seconds.

 

[whs]

I guess if everything is really tops, you can get there. But I am cheap and have cheap equipment, LOL

Did you ever look into Event 100 - what does that say, like in my post #26 ?

 

[mackado]

where can I reach "diagnostic performance" logs?

this folder doesn't show up in my 'Event viewer'..

Also, should I delete all the old previous log files/folders (ccleaner) like 'Windows error reporting' 'windows log files" etc and start new logs ?

 

[whs]

If you want to go to the Events, drill down this chain:

Eventvwr
Applications and Service Logs
Microsoft
Windows
Diagnostics - performance
Operational
Event ID 100

After 'Windows' you find Diagnostic-Performance here:

 

[mackado]

WHS, that folder was buried deep in there, I never knew those tools were available...I need to remove a few programs running at boot, I believe Avast is the most resource hog for me according to Soluto a 'boot up monitor' program I used to run here to keep track until a few months back.

I was about right, as it is configured right now [same as before the SDD] it takes this PC around 35 seconds to boot up with the new SDD at 3 Gb/s rate...a huge improvement.

 

[whs]

35sec is still a tad slow for a SSD. You are right, check the startups. But disabling the AV program is not such a good idea. This is the only one that should not be disabled. ALL the others can be disabled.

 

[gregrocker]

I'd test with a lightweight AV like MSE or Panda cloud to compare the difference.

 

[mackado]

Yes Guys, I'm thinking of using MSE and removing Avast, it has become too bloated with extra features that are duplicated in my SYS, and since discovering the 'Diagnostics -performance ' with event 100, I discovered both Avast and my old backup software [Cobian] are triggering shutdown delays, also with the help of Glary Utilities, I believe finally traced the issues I've been having with Explorer.EXE for close to a year now also to Avast, apparently is not loading the "context menu' correctly.
Another boot resource hog is Zone Alarm, not sure if I should keep it..

 

[gregrocker]

I would not have Glary Utilties or Zone Alarm, nor any backup software other than a lightweight Sync like OneDrive or Dropbox running. If it ran any of these I would expect boot delays and multiple other problems.

 

[mackado]

Last night after some cleaning bootup was down to 28 seconds, today I removed Avast and Zone Alarm, and installed MSE, boot up was up and down after that, reached 46 seconds after a MS upgrade, last one was down to 30 seconds, I'm hoping numbers will improve after a few days, now trying to figure out what to use for local backup software..

Do you know were the Win7 SSD Optimization control/Menu is located, 'Samsung magician' is handling it now but I want to remove it from the boot too.

 

[whs]

Use this for backup - it's the best, seriously.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

And forget SSD optimization. As long as the SSD is aligned, there is nothing to optimize.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure what you mean by "Win7 SSD optimization control".

You should confirm that defrag is off and that the drive is properly aligned. That's about it unless you have known issues.

Run a benchmark to confirm performance is within the norm. Most of the variation in benchmarks matters little---you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference among most SSDs in real world use.

I've heard both good and bad about Samsung Magician.

 

[mackado]

Samsung Magician reports OS Optimization =Not configured, and mentions to use the OS Optimization menu, Samsung has a performance optimization tab that one can use if your "OS lacks TRIM support for SSD", I used it before, but the setting disappeared after reboots, and apparently I would have to keep Magician running at boot up to apply the settings, I never heard of this OS Optimization menu either, but maybe it was an Win7 utility hidden some where?

 

[mackado]

Use this for backup - it's the best, seriously.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

And forget SSD optimization. As long as the SSD is aligned, there is nothing to optimize.

Thanks WHS, didn't see this reply until now, I downloaded Macrium before as recommended by you guys here to do an Image of the old HDD that didn't work because of the disc errors, I will try it out for regular back ups and see...I was also recommended Todo Backup..